The recommendation was superfluous, for this was 346 the very thing the noble animal seemed to intend doing. He galloped another half-mile, then changed his mind, as though the strangulation were beginning to tell on him. He swung straight round as if resigned to the notion of going back to the rest, hesitated, then caught the slackening thong in his teeth and bit at it as savagely as a wild ass. Naturally the beginner at once turned his own horse, meaning to pay his prisoner out in his own coin; and spurring vigorously, headed towards the central part of the hunt. But this did not please the irate captive, and, after useless efforts to stand—first on his dignity and then on his head, he made a dead weight of himself for an instant, then took several successive bounds forward, easily outstripping his tormentor and slackening the pressure of the noose.
“Is the brute going to dance?” Don Paez asked himself wrathfully.
This was just what the brute was going to do; not after the common or circus fashion, but with the fixed idea of crushing the lad’s arm with his great jaws. The young man’s fine horsemanship was the only thing that could now save him from a bite which would not only mangle a limb, but would probably lead to blood-poisoning—a disease not exactly sought after in England, and almost sure to be fatal in the tropics. He backed, and the line tightened; but the stallion was on him again in another spring. He backed once more, dodged to the right, to the left, waved his arm at the infuriated creature, but to no purpose; and, though he would have bitten his tongue out before he would own himself beaten, by 347 shouting for help, he felt that he was playing a losing game. There was just one chance left for him, and that was to spur his already enfeebled horse to a gallop and race his antagonist.
Never did Derby competitor work a horse more recklessly; Don Paez spurred and smote, smote and spurred, and only to lose at one minute the start he had gained the minute before; only just now he had been endeavouring might and main to slacken the lasso; now he would have given a five-pound note to feel it taut. Suddenly his horse seemed to turn round like a wheel, he had a confused vision of the sky falling on him, then of the earth coming up to meet him, and he and the horse lay on the ground together. He had obeyed his instinct to kick himself free from the stirrups, and so fell clear of the horse and escaped with only a severe shaking.
Then he looked up and saw the cause of his fall; an old Carib, who had watched his struggle from a distance, had pegged down his own capture, galloped across and neatly dropped a second lasso over the head of the rebellious wild horse.
The next few nights, all camped out on the Llano, and by the end of the week, were ready to start for the camp with fully three thousand horses. South American ways with animals are not our ways, and Indian methods of taming and transporting horses are not such as English readers love to hear of;[5] it will be sufficient to say that, for transport, the captives were yoked up in long teams, each horse being thong-hobbled on his fore-legs.
Horse-hunting was not the only species of sport which Don Paez witnessed among the Caribs. On the journey to the camp, it became necessary to replenish the food-supply, and he accompanied six of the Indians on one of their curious deer-hunts. As a preliminary, the hunters made a call at a native village and each returned with a small bundle in his hand.
“They are our masks,” said the cacique, who was of the party. “Some of our people hunt with an ox, but you will see that the mask is as effective. I have brought one for you, Señor Commandante. Will you put it on?”